Thursday, December 26, 2013

Secondly, thanks for being patient with me as I skipped the last two Tuesdays of blogging. (like I've said before: life happens!) :)

Thirdly, I've got an announcement to make concerning this blog:

Since last....let me see...was it March??? I've been trying to keep up with blogging once a week on Tuesdays which has been super good for me, but now with 2014 coming on, graduation coming up, and more school/work/life to do, I'm gunna have to say goodbye to

Thanks to all of you faithful 'Keep Calm and Tuesday On' readers, and for all of your awesome comments!

Ugh. gotta finish it up by this Friday....(maybe...I can't find a testing center near me that administers Dantes tests!! HELP!)

DECORATE

Deck the halls with LOTS of boughs of holly (and evergreen :)

CHRISTMAS SHOP

We are doing a new thing this year:

Everyone draws a name from a hat (or cheap plastic cup) and whoever's name we get, we make or buy presents for. I drew Ben's name this time, so I've gotta figure out what to get him. I really like the idea of filling a big bag with boyish odds and ends, and what's nice is that stores generally carry a bunch of little doodads that an 11 year old would love ;)

BALLET

Guess what's coming up tomorrow evening in Asheville?!?! THE MOSCOW BALLET is performing the NUTCRACKER!!! I've never been to a real ballet before, so I'm super stoked about this thing!

So much to do, and yet I still managed to get sick with a sore throat and fever yesterday :(

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Being on Thanksgiving break has afforded me the opportunity to blog a bit earlier today...so nice :)

**

I've got a question; what kind of feeling do you get when you see this picture?

I know for me, it brings a nostalgic feeling that reminds me of cinnamon, warmth, jingle bells, Christmas songs, red and green, hot chocolate, snow, sitting by the fire in my pajamas reading a book, and the smell of Christmas trees.

I don't know what it is, but this year I just absolutely can not wait for the whole Christmas season to start.

Actually, I take that back....I think I do know why. Over the last 2 years or so, amidst all of the craziness, God became a reality for me, and you know what is crazy? After thinking (and I mean really thinking) about whether I believed what I said I believed or not, I came to realize that for the longest time, I had been riding on my parent's beliefs and not making them my own. Yes, I knew all of the right answers to the Shorter Catechism, and Bible stories, but I think that's all they were to me; just stories. Ya know, that word, stories, can get to you after a while - you can almost start to think of truths as fables. I did without even realizing it.

Well, I had always heard that at some point in your walk with Christ, you would have this moment when you come to a crossroads that made you decide to either follow Him fully, or follow the world.

I guess I was expecting a huge defining life crisis that would bring me to this point, but that's not what happened with me.

It really has been a gradual process within the past 2 years that God has been super kind in taking me through. It's a cool thing to be able to say:

"I am not the same person that I was even 2 months ago."

He continues to sanctify me daily (and let me clarify something. None of this is because of anything that I've done....it's God waking up my dead heart!)

and so that is (the long version :) why I think that I am looking forward to Christmas this year more than ever before. I believe that I am finally beginning to understand and be thankful for the this season of celebrating Christ's birth.

Oh! Haha. Why am I talking about Christmas, when Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet!?! (some of my family members would shoot me....NO Christmas until after Thanksgiving type of thing....)

SO, I want to end this post with Thanksgiving. I've got a huge list of things that I'm thankful for, 10 of which I'll list here:

1. Salvation

2. My family

3. That group of guys from our Church who came over this past weekend to help us work on our basement

4. Christmas

5. My new iPhone that I got for 99¢ (whoohoo!)

6. All of the family that will be coming over for Thanksgiving (can't wait guys!)

7. Cozy, icy, gray weather like this

8. Friends

9. The chance to relax and think about plans for the future

10. The fact that I have never been in any REAL need of anything.

In America, we are blessed more than I think we'll ever know or truly realize.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

In our Church, we have a Titus 2 woman who has been super good to a group of us girls in teaching a Bible study on Romans over the Summer which has benefited us all so much!

This past weekend, our study group went up to one of the girl's families cabin and kind of did a recap on the study, sharing what had impacted us the most, as well as spending time with each other, hiking and so forth :)

I'm so grateful for this group of fun, but solid people who get together to both enjoy each other and keep one another accountable!

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."

~Provers 27:17

Breakfast - best meal of the day....orange juice, hot chocolate, eggs, Pillsbury Doughboy biscuits, sausage and fruit! Can you get any better than that?!?

Sitting on the porch in PJ's to talk until lunch time...

Hiking up to 'the bald' on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.

In our Bible study, we divided the book into 5 main sections:

Sin, Salvation, Sanctification, Sovereignty, and Service.

sooo, this is us on top of a mountain, demonstrating the 5 different sections in Romans:

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Brrrrr.....It's just now gotten somewhat chilly here in the mountains - so exciting!!!

Yesterday I spent most of the day up in Asheville, and while I'd like to say that I shopped long and hard with Mom at Trader Joe's and Target, I've gotta admit that I stayed in the car pretty much the whole time trying to study for yet another CLEP test. (actually I'm not a big shopper, so I guess I couldn't have said that anyways :P)

But it was fun getting to wear my fuzzy boots for the first time this season, finding an awesome CD for only $5 at a used book/CD store, and seeing a few early Christmas lights that evening on the drive home.

Speaking of Christmas, I absolutely CAN NOT WAIT! Everything about it just seems to special to me this year for some reason.

:)

{here is a sneak peak of one of our Christmas card pictures that we'll be sending out sometime this December}

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

For consistency's sake, I'm blogging tonight, but I've gotta warn you - It's nothing special. I've got only 2 days to try to cram a whole College Algebra course in before I don't get credit for any of it, so I'm off to studying again!